Shifting Tides
by Sephorium
Summary: How did a lazy night of watching TV series and sipping on hot coco end with Zara being thrust into what she could only assume to be another world? And to make matters worse she is found and kidnapped by two mysterious cloaked figures. Rated T for language, rating may change.


**I don't know what I'm doing on the night before an exam writing this but honestly I've tried studying all day and nothing is sinking in and honestly I think I'm going to fail and I'm scared… -sigh-**

 **Anyway I need to do something to take my mind off the stress because I'm pretty sure this can't be good for me.**

Zara sat contently in the cushioned chair of her living room, sipping a mug of hot coco. Nothing could beat the feeling of a Friday night, the working week was over and there was nothing she had to do the entire weekend.

She was planning to spend her weekend doing a mixture of sleeping, watching series and lounging around in her pyjamas, without a care in the world, just for a couple days anyway.

She put on the latest Game of thrones episode that had come out on Sunday of the previous week that she had not yet had time to watch and nestled her back comfortably into the seat.

She was only about five minutes into the episode when there was a loud bang, causing her to jump and almost spill hot coco all over her beige sweater. About 5 seconds later the power cut out with the ringing _click_ of all the appliances in her house turning off.

"Great," she chimed sarcastically, carefully placing the mug on the coffee table in front of her in the pitch blackness.

She rose to her feet, suddenly finding her sense of balance disappear with the lights and almost falling straight over the coffee table.

It was a struggle to find her way past the furniture to get into the kitchen where the switchboard was. She grabbed a box of matches she left on the kitchen counter for just the occasion. She lit one and used it to light a candle she had pulled out of the draw.

All the switches on the board were up, meaning that none of them had tripped causing the power outage. Now not only was the power out but she now had no idea why.

"Even better," she almost laughed at how typical it was when she finally had a moment to enjoy herself that something like this would happen.

She looked outside the glass of the kitchen door and saw all the streetlights and other houses had power except for her of course.

She resigned herself to the fact that her night of lazing around and enjoying herself was now over. She picked the landline up in an attempt to call the electricity company to complain because she most definitely had paid the bill but the line was also dead.

Okay what the fuck is going on? She was starting to worry now because the phone was one of those old phones that were powered by the phone company and not the house electricity.

It was like a horror movie where the burglar knocks your power out and cuts the phone line so you can't call the police. The only problem with that theory was that the phone line was most definitely intact and it couldn't be quieter outside, no rustling leaves or footsteps, just the calming sound of crickets in the distance.

Using the candle as a light source she made her way to the bedroom to find her cellphone which to her absolute surprise was dead although she had left it charging since the night before, even forgetting it at home during the day at work.

She held down the power button again and again trying to get the screen to light up, but was met with nothing.

So she went over to her laptop with had been turned off all day and had at least a 2 hour battery life without power.

Dead, it was fucking dead.

"Are you fucking kidding me? This is a dream right? I'm fucking dreaming and fell asleep on the couch, I have to have," she growled in disbelief and did the only logical thing she could in this situation.

She pinched her arm, hard, and almost yelped from the pain.

Her eyes widened as she realised that this was most certainly not a dream.

'Okay, I'll just go over to my neighbour Abigail and ask her if I can borrow her phone and if I can't get this sorted tonight I'll stay over,' she thought to herself, trying her best not to panic at what was going on.

She grabbed her house key and unlocked the door stepping outside and immediately locking it again, she was in a pretty safe area but she didn't want to take any risks at getting her house broken into.

She was on her way out the gate when she noticed a strange light coming from the ground near the bed of bougainvilleas. She stepped back inside and closed the gate behind her so the wind wouldn't make it slam.

She walked up to it and dropped down on her haunches to see what the strange light was, but she couldn't figure it out. It didn't seem to come from anything at all, it just was.

So she reached out to touch it without thinking and as soon as her fingers came in contact with the light she screamed as the world quite literally tore apart and her body started spinning like her dad used to do with her when she was a child.

Except it was nauseating and violent and not at all fun, all she wanted to do was stop, what on earth was happening ?

She found herself blacking out and falling into darkness.

When she woke up it was warm, a lot warmer than she remembered it being earlier that night.

And speaking of remembering, she suddenly did and her eyes immediately snapped open.

All she was met with though, was darkness. 'So that bit hasn't changed,' she mused to herself and sat upright from where she was lying on the ground.

She could feel grass beneath her hands, maybe she was still in her garden and the weather just got warmer?

No. Where was the light from the neighbours' houses or the streetlights?

Her pale green eyes started to adjust slightly to the surrounding darkness and very little moonlight from the waning moon.

She was surrounded by trees, huge, tall, green trees. She lived in the middle of a city there weren't any forests like these for hundreds of miles.

She stood up and walked over to the closest tree to her, it was enormous, the base as wide as both of her arms outstretched.

She touched the bark, the rough texture grazing the pads of her fingers. It was not a dream, she was sure of it, it was just all too real.

She noticed that the bark was covered in scratches, which were actually more like deep cuts. She wondered how they had happened, they definitely weren't natural.

She heard a voice in her ear, literally right in her ear and almost jumped out of her own skin. She hadn't heard a single noise, not a leaf on the forest floor rustle, nor the tell tale sound of clothing rub against itself as a person moves.

Just nothing.

She couldn't understand what the man was saying; he was speaking in what she was certain to be Japanese.

She had her back facing him but he was standing so close she was sure if she tried to turn around she would bump shoulders with him.

The voice came again, more agitated and louder and she found herself stupidly frozen in place not knowing what to do.

She should run right? Just strafe to the side and bolt for it.

And she did but bumped into an impossibly tall and large man that she hadn't noticed standing next to her before, with the force of the impact her back went slamming into the tree she had previously been standing in front of and found herself facing both of these men.

What did they want from her and who were they? She couldn't see much of them at all as they were wearing cloaks that buttoned all the way up to around their mouths.

The big man turned to the much shorter one and seemed to be asking him something that involved her, she could tell by the way his head turned towards her when he spoke.

She had never wished to be able to understand Japanese more than she did now, not even during her teen years when she would watch hours on end of anime, she was more than content reading the subtitles.

Unfortunately real life didn't have subtitles.

"What are you doing Itachi?" Kisame asked the shorter man as he stopped in his tracks next to him.

He did not respond but instead disappeared so fast it was almost as if he was never there to begin with.

Kisame groaned impatiently and followed after him, wondering what had interested Itachi enough to deviate from the path they were following.

He found him closing in on a girl who was, what would seem, entirely oblivious of him. Which quite honestly wasn't surprising as Itachi didn't ever make a sound when he walked.

He stopped behind her and spoke in his usual deep and emotionless tone.

"Girl, turn around," he commanded in a tone that demanded obedience. He saw the girl recoil but to his surprise she did not turn around or even move her head to look at him.

She just stood there.

Kisame walked forward until he was quite literally next to the girl but again she was entirely oblivious.

"Who are you?" Itachi asked, however this time he sounded slightly aggravated at how she hadn't done what he had previously told her to.

But this time she didn't move at all, she just stood there, shoulders stiff.

Next thing he knew the girl had run and bumped straight into his stomach; and then preceded to bounce back and slam into the tree she was standing in front of before.

That had to have hurt, he would imagine, considering how tiny her frame was, she only came up to his mid-stomach in height.

He was sure he'd never seen a grown woman as short has her; she must only be around 5 feet tall.

He turned to Itachi to ask the same question he had already asked, "What are you doing? She doesn't seem like a threat; shouldn't we be on our way?"

Itachi looked up at his with his heavily-lashed crimson eyes and finally spoke.

"Don't you notice something strange about her Kisame-san?"

Kisame looked at her again for a good few second and then looked back at Itachi with a look that answered his question.

"She's abnormally short?" Kisame joked, but was met with no laughter, not even a change of expression.

"She has no chakra signature," He responded eventually, all of this time the girl looked at them with a look of confusion.

"Oh, so she doesn't," he stated nonchalantly still not understanding why Itachi was wasting his time with her.

"Even non-ninja civilians have a chakra signature," Itachi further explained patiently. He learned this before he was even in ninja school, everyone has a chakra signature, even an infant within their mother's womb.

But with her there was nothing, it wasn't cloaked, it just wasn't there.

He was getting impatient with her and when she turned to run again the way that was not blocked by him or Kisame he grabbed her wrist, turned it up behind her back and pressed a kunai against her throat.

She visibly winced but didn't struggle.

"I'm not going to ask again, girl" He said in an entirely impassive tone, implying that this time if she did not answer him he would kill her.

Oh god they were going to kill her, she didn't understand what they wanted from her. She didn't have money or even a phone on her and nothing to offer them.

She felt the blade press harder against her neck and the skin split open painfully, leaving a thin line of blood in its wake.

In a panic she squeaked out, "Please, I don't understand what you're saying!"

She felt the blade move slightly away from her neck, giving her enough room to swallow without slitting her own throat but it still lingered an inch away threateningly.

With the outburst from the girl, Kisame looked over at Itachi to see what he would do next. He didn't really care if he killed her, at least then they could get on with their mission; but he had to admit that he did find it strange that she has no chakra signature, he had never encountered anyone like it before.

What language was that anyway? He understood her as much as she did them.

Itachi looked over at Kisame and seemed to be thinking over what to do with her. He could just leave her here and continue with his mission but she may warn people that the Akatsuki were in the area which could lead to a fight, he didn't want that.

He could kill her but his curiosity about her was greater than his urge to kill her.

"Kisame-san, leader-sama would probably be interested in her, we should take her back with us," Itachi spoke in a tone that didn't leave any room for objections.

He wouldn't admit that it was his own curiosity about the girl that spared her life.

With a grunt of acknowledgement Kisame waited for Itachi to lower the kunai from her throat and in a swift movement grabbed her around her petite waist and threw her not-so-gently over his shoulder.

She weighed virtually nothing; in fact he was almost sure Samehada weighed more than she did.

She struggled violently yelling things in a foreign language until a tight warning squeeze around her waist both winded and silenced her.

"That's better," he chuckled and followed after Itachi at a speed only a ninja could reach.

She found herself closing her eyes trying to fight off the motion sickness.

She was officially being kidnapped by a man like twice her size who was travelling at an inhumanly fast speed. This was insane.

She was god knows where, on a different planet for all she knew. What happened to her lazy weekend of series and hot coco? It felt like a distant memory, even though it had been just earlier that day.

Who would even come looking for her? Could they? Was she even anywhere to be found?

Zara eventually resigned herself to the fact that she was probably never going to go home again and was just lucky she was still alive at this point. She definitely planned on staying that way.


End file.
